New Delhi, May 7 -- The usage gap in India's flagship financial inclusion programme has widened further, with inactive zero-balance accounts under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) surging to 26% at 143.83 million at state-run banks, while falling to 36% at 6.3 million at private banks as of March 2026.

The total PMJDY accounts across state-run and private banks stood at 581.8 million, with deposits reaching Rs.3.02 trillion by early April 2026. State-run banks had 449.8 million accounts, while private banks held 20.8 million.

This spike in inactive accounts has been broad-based across public sector banks, which had 112.4 million dormant PMJDY accounts, or 21% of the total, at the end of March 2025. Only Indian Bank and Central...